THE LAMP IS BLOWN OUT
The door of Margaret Douglas's chamber still stood open, and Sholto
found Earl William seated upon the foot of the bed, endeavouring by
every means in his power to distract his sister's attention from her
fears. Maud Lindesay, now more completely dressed than when he had
first seen her, sat on the other side of the little lady's couch. She
was laughing as he entered at some merry jest of the Earl's. And at
the sound of her tinkling mirth Sholto's heart sank within him. So
soon as she caught sight of the new captain of the guard the gladness
left her face, and she became grave and sober, like a gossip long
unconfessed when the holy father comes knocking at the door.
At sight of her emotion Sholto resolved that if his fears should prove
to be well founded, he would resign his honourable office. For to
abide continually in the castle, and hourly observe Maud Lindesay's
love for another, was more than his philosophy could stand.
In the meantime there was only his duty to be done. So he saluted the
Earl, and in a few words told him that which he had seen. But the soul
of William Douglas was utterly devoid of suspicion, both because he
held himself so great that none could touch him, and also because,
being high of spirit and open as the sky, he read into the acts of
others his own straightforwardness and unsuspicion.
The Earl rose smilingly, declaring to Margaret that to-morrow he would
hang every dog and puppy in Galloway on the dule tree of Thrieve,
whereupon the child began to plead for the life of this cur and that
other of her personal acquaintances with a tearful earnestness which
told of a sorely jangled mind.
"Well, at least," cried Earl Douglas, "I will not have such brutes
prowling about my castle of Thrieve even in my sister's dreams.
Captain Sholto, do you station a man of your guard in the angle of the
staircase where it looks along each corridor. Pick out your prettiest
cross-bowmen, for it were not seemly that my guests should be
disturbed by the rude shots and villanous reek of the fusil."
Sholto bowed stiffly and waited the further pleasure of his master.
Then the two young men went out without Maud Lindesay having uttered a
word, or manifested the least surprise at the advancement which had
befallen the heir of the master armourer of Carlinwark.
As soon as the door had closed upon the two maidens, the Earl turned a
face suddenly grave and earnest on his young captain of the guard.
"What think you," he said, "was this appearance real?"
"Real enough to leave these upon the floor," answered Sholto, pointing
to sundry gouts and drops of blood upon the turret stairs.
The Earl took the lamp from his hand and earnestly scrutinised each
step in a downward direction. The spots ran irregularly as if the
wounded beast had shaken his head from side to side as he ran. They
turned along towards the corridor where at the first alarm Sholto had
found the Earl, and in the very midst of it abruptly stopped. While
Sholto and William Douglas were examining the floor, they both looked
over their shoulders, uneasily conscious of a regard upon them, as if
some one, unseen himself, had been looking down from behind.
"Do you place your men as I told you," said the Earl, abruptly, "and
bring me a truckle bed out of the guardroom. I shall remain in this
closet till morning. But do you keep a special lookout on the floor
above, that the repose of my sister and her friend be not again
disturbed."
Sholto bowed without speech, and hastening down to the guardroom he
commanded two of his best bowmen to follow him with their apparatus,
while he himself snatched up the low truckle couch which custom
assigned to the captain of the guard should he desire to rest himself
during the night, and on which Landless Jock had always passed the
majority of his hours of duty. This he carried to the Earl, and
placing it in the angle he saw his youthful master stretch himself
upon it, wrapped in his cloak and with a naked sword ready to his
hand.
"A good and undisturbed slumber to you, my lord," said Sholto, curtly,
as he went out.
He saw that his two men were duly posted upon the lower landing of the
stair, and then betook himself to the upper floor where slept the
little Maid of Galloway.
He walked slowly to the end of the passage scrutinising every recess
and closet door, every garde-robe and wall press from which it was
possible that the beast he had seen might have emerged. He was wholly
unsuccessful in discovering anything suspicious, and had almost
resolved to station himself at the turn of the staircase which led
down from the roof, when, looking back, at the sharp click of a latch,
he saw Maud Lindesay coming out of the chamber of the little Maid of
Galloway.
Softly closing the door behind her, she paused a moment as if
undecided, and then more with her chin than with her finger she
beckoned him to approach.
"She sleeps," said the girl, softly, "but so uncertainly and with so
many startings of terror, that I will not leave her alone. Will you
aid me to remove the mattress of my couch and lay it on the floor
beside her?"
Sholto signified his willingness. His mind was more than ever
oppressed by the thought that the Earl of Douglas loved this girl,
whom he had found listening to his jests with such frank joyousness.
Maud stayed him with one of the long looks out from under her
eyelashes. The dark violet orbs rested upon him a moment reproachfully
with a hurt expression in their depths, and were then dropped with a
sigh.
"You are still angry with me," she said, a little wistfully, "and I
wanted to tell you how happy it made me--made us, I mean--when we
heard that you were to be captain of the castle-guard instead of that
grumbling old curmudgeon, Jock of Abernethy."
The heart of Sholto was instantly melted, more by her looks than by
her words, though deep within him he had still an angry feeling that
he was being played with. All the same, and in spite of his resolves,
the eyeshot from under those dark and sweeping lashes did its usual
and deadly work.
"I did not know that aught which might befall me could be anything to
Mistress Maud Lindesay," said Sholto, with the last shreds of dignity
in his voice.
"I said not to me, but to _us_," she corrected, smiling; "but tell me
what think you of this appearance which has so startled our Margaret.
Was it ghost or goblin or dream of the night? We have never had either
witch or warlock about the house of Thrieve since the old Abbot Gawain
laid the ghost of Archibald the Grim with four-and-forty masses, said
without ever breaking his fast, down there in the castle chapel."
"Nay, ask me not," answered Sholto, "I am little skilled in matters
spiritual. I should try sword point and arrowhead on such gentry, and
if these do them no harm, why then I think they will not distress me
much."
But all the same he said nothing to the girl about the red blood on
his sword or the splashed gouts on the steps of the staircase.
He followed Maud Lindesay into her chamber, and being arrived there,
lifted couch and all in his arms, with an ease born of long
apprenticeship to the forehammer. The girl regarded him with
admiration which she was careful not to dissemble.
"You are very strong," she said. Then, after a pause, she added,
"Margaret and I like strong men."
The heart of the youth was glad within him, thus to be called a man,
even though he kept saying over and over to himself: "She means it
not! She means it not! She loves the Earl! I know well she loves the
Earl!"
Maud Lindesay paused a moment before the chamber door of her little
charge, finger on lip, listening.
"She sleeps--go quietly," she whispered, holding the door open for
him. He set down the bed where she showed him--by the side of the
small slumbering figure of the Maid of Galloway.
Then he went softly to the door. The girl followed him. "You will not
be far away," she said doubtfully and with a perilous sort of
humility, "if this dreadful thing should come back again? I--that is
we, would feel safer if we knew that you--that any one strong and
brave was near at hand."
Then the heart of Sholto broke out in quick anger.
"Deceive me not," he cried, "I know well that the Earl loves you, and
that you love him in return."
"Well, indeed, were it for my lord Earl if he loved as honest a
woman," said Maud Lindesay, pouting disdainfully. "But what is such a
matter, yea or nay, to you?"
"It is all life and happiness to me," said Sholto, earnestly. "Ah, do
not go--stay a moment. I shall never sleep this night if you go
without giving me an answer."
"Then," said the girl, "you will be the more in the line of your duty,
which allows not much sleep o' nights. You are but a silly, petulant
boy for all your fine captaincy. I wish it had been Landless Jock. He
would never have vexed me with foolish questions at such a time."
"But I love you, and I demand an answer," cried Sholto, fuming. "Do
you love the Earl?"
"What do you think yourself now?" she said, looking up at him with an
inimitable slyness, and pronouncing her words so as to imitate the
broad simplicity of countryside speech.
Sholto vented a short gasp or inarticulate snort of anger, at which
Maud Lindesay started back with affected terror.
"Do not fright a poor maid," she said. "Will you put me in the castle
dungeon if I do not answer? Tell me exactly what you want me to say,
and I will say it, most mighty captain."
And she made him the prettiest little courtesy, turning at the same
time her eyes in mock humility on the ground.
"Oh, Maud Lindesay," said Sholto, with a little conflicting sob in his
throat, ill becoming so noted a warrior as the captain of the
castle-guard of the Black Douglas, "if you knew how I loved you, you
would not treat me thus."
The girl came nearer to him and laid a white and gentle hand on the
sleeve of his blue archer's coat.
"Nay, lad," she said more soberly, lifting a finger to his face,
"surely you are no milksop to mind how a girl flouts you. Love the
Earl--say you? Well, is it not our duty to the bread we eat? Is he not
worthy? Is he not the head of our house?"
"Cheat me not with words. The Earl loves you," said Sholto, lifting
his head haughtily out of her reach. (To have one's chin pushed this
way and that by a girl's forefinger, and as it were considered
critically from various points of view, may be pleasant, but it
interferes most seriously with dignity.)
"He may, indeed," drolled the minx, "one can never tell. But he has
never said so. He is perhaps afraid, being born without the
self-conceit of some people--archers of the guard, fledgling captains,
and such-like gentrice."
"Do you love him?" reiterated Sholto, determinedly.
"I will tell you for that gold buckle," said Maud, calmly pointing
with her finger.
Instantly Sholto pulled the cap from his head, undid the pin of the
archery prize, and thrust it into his wicked sweetheart's hands.
She received it with a little cry of joy, then she pressed it to her
lips. Sholto, rejoicing at heart, moved a step nearer to her. But, in
spite of her arch delight, she was on the alert, for she retreated
deftly and featly within the chamber door of the Fair Maid of
Galloway. There was still more mirthful wickedness in her eyes.
"Love the Earl?--Of course I do. Indeed, I doat upon him," she said.
"How I shall love this buckle, just because his hand gave it to you!"
And with that she shut to the door.
Sholto, in act to advance, stood a moment poised on one foot like a
goose. Then with a heart blazing with anger, and one of the first
oaths that had ever passed his lips, he turned on his heel and strode
away.
"I will never think of her again--I will never see her. I will go to
France and perish in battle. I will throw me in the castle pool. I
will--"
So the poor lad retreated, muttering hot and angry words, all his
heart sore within him because of the cruelty of this girl.
But he had not proceeded twenty steps along the corridor, when he
heard the door softly open and a low voice whispered, "Sholto! Sholto!
I want you, Sholto!"
He bent his brows and strode manfully on as if he had not heard a
word.
"Sholto!--dear Sholto! Do not go, I need you."
Against his will he turned, and, seeing the head of Maud Lindesay, her
pouting lips and beckoning finger, he went sulkily back.
"Well?" he said, with the stern curtness of a military commander, as
he stood before her.
She held the iron lamp in her hand. The wick had fallen aside and was
now wasting itself in a broad, unequal yellow flame. The maid of
honour looked at it in perplexity, knitting her pretty brows in a mock
frown.
"It burned me as I was ordering my hair," she said. "I cannot blow it
out. I dare not. Will you--will you blow it out for me, Captain
Sholto?"
She spoke with a sweet childlike humility.
And she held the lamp up so that the iron handle was almost touching
her soft cheek. There was a dancing challenge in her dark eyes and her
lips smiled dangerously red. She could not, of course, have known that
the light made her look so beautiful, or she would have been more
careful.
Sholto stood still a moment, at wrestle with himself, trying to
conquer his dignity, and to retain his attitude of stern disapproval.
But the girl swept her lashes up towards him, dropped them again dark
as night upon her cheek, and anon looked a second time at him.
"I am sorry," she said, more than ever like a child. "Forgive me,
and--the lamp is so hot."
Now Sholto was young and inexperienced, but he was not quite a fool.
He stooped and blew out the light, and the next moment his lips rested
upon other lips which, as it had been unconsciously, resigned their
soft sweetness to his will.
Then the door closed, and he heard the click of the lock as the bolts
were shot from within. The gallery ran round and round about him like
a clacking wheel. His heart beat tumultuously, and there was a strange
humming sound in his ears.
The captain of the guard stumbled half distracted down the turret
stair.
The old world had been destroyed in a moment and he was walking in a
new, where perpetual roses bloomed and the spring birds sang for
evermore. He knew not, this poor foolish Sholto, that he had much to
learn ere he should know all the tricks and stratagems of this most
naughty and prettily disdainful minx, Mistress Maud Lindesay.
But for that night at least he thought he knew her heart and soul,
which made him just as happy.